


The Realities of Bed Sharing

by capn666



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Cuddling, F/M, Fluff, One Shot, actual children, bed sharing, intimacy without sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-16 01:46:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21499816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capn666/pseuds/capn666
Summary: Sharing a bed isn't as scary or weird when you do it with someone you're comfortable with. Sometimes it's just nice.
Relationships: Jake Peralta & Amy Santiago, Jake Peralta/Amy Santiago
Comments: 9
Kudos: 125





	The Realities of Bed Sharing

**Author's Note:**

> Tired of "bed-sharing" being seen as inherently sexual. Intimacies between people who trust each other can be just that: intimate. Without being uncomfortable or leading to something. These two have been through way worse than a shared sleeping space.  
> -Love, An Asexual

Amy had read enough of those “bed sharing” stories to be completely in her head when the idea was brought up. But this was nothing like those. This was the real thing. And it was so much more ridiculous.

The motel they were stopped at had only the one room available and they’d agreed without much thought to it. She and Jake had been through plenty together, they could handle sharing a space to sleep in for a few hours. They were both exhausted from the day of driving and grumpy about having to take this weekend trip just for the criminal to never show up. The sheer audacity of some drug lords, honestly. They didn’t seem at all sympathetic to the amount of work that goes into catching them just for them to not even bother appearing at their predicted location.

When the very tired, very bored at the reception desk had told them there was only one room with only one bed, Jake had looked over at Amy and shrugged. They both needed sleep and this was their only option.

Amy accepted the room and soon enough Jake was dropping his bag at the foot of the bed, his whole body collapsing face-first into the comforter with enough force to make an audible _floomp_ and a low groan from Jake. Amy propped her bag on the chair, already searching for her sleeping clothes and tooth brush.

“Alright,” she said, turning to see Jake having unmoved from where he’d fallen at the end of the bed. “My only rule: you have to shower before you get in that bed. I will not let you in this bed until you’ve showered.”

His groans got louder, only partially because he turned his face away from the blanket to make it. It sounded more like a sound from deep within his soul than from his throat. “Can’t. Can’t move.”

“You don’t have to yet because I’m showering first. But once I’m out, you’re showering or I’m rolling you onto the floor.”

As if to spite her, he began to roll himself with no gracefulness at all until he came to the edge of the bed and his whole body thumped onto the carpet. She could hear the hitch in his breathing when his back met the ground and the air was punched from his lungs. His arms splayed out at his sides and his eyes pressed shut to block out the obnoxious fluorescents glaring above him. He looked seconds away from sleep. “Leave me here to die.”

“That works, too.” Amy collected her things and left for the bathroom. The hot water was a welcome feeling, beating the exhaustion from her bones and loosening her muscles. She somehow felt so much better and also a hundred times worse under the steam. Her eyelids were heavy with water and sleep and she swore she could have slept right there. But she forced herself out, wrapping the always too-thin towel around herself as best she could and then throwing on her sweats and the free NYPD t-shirt they’d all received at the last CopCon. She still felt damp, motel towels never drying enough, and she could feel her clothes clinging to part of her arms and legs. The discomfort was minor, though, and would be fixed the moment she was able to fall into bed.

Jake was still on the ground when she came out. He hadn’t moved an inch and may very well have been asleep. She stepped over him to put her folded clothes onto the table by the wall.

“Your turn.”

He groaned as he stood up and continued groaning all the way into the bathroom. The shower turned on again and Amy could hear the comforting rattling of pipes through the walls. She pulled down the comforter and dropped into bed, her whole body sinking into the mountains of pillows and multiple heavy blankets. She couldn’t be sure if she had slept or not when Jake returned to the room and she found herself blinking awake, eyes having to readjust to that awful unnatural light. It was only a moment, though.

She just barely got a fuzzy image of Jake tossing a damp towel in the direction of one of the chairs before he was pulling down the blankets and she was hit with a wave of cool air as he dropped his full weight into the space next to her. The cold was gone in half a second but it was still enough that she curled deeper into the blankets, her face going under to tuck into her chest.

When she reemerged, the lights were off and Jake was lying on his back next to her. His eyes were already closed but his face was half-turned to her. “Hey, Amy?” His voice was distant, slipping in and out of consciousness but trying very hard to get across before he was lost to sleep.

“Yes, Jake.”

“I wanted that side of the bed.”

“Sucks to suck.”

“Mmm.” He hummed and it continued on for a few moments, almost as though he’d forgotten he was doing it and so forgot he had to stop.

“Jake?”

He stopped humming, his head turned ever so slightly more in her direction. “Amy.”

She curled further into her cocoon, the warmth of the blankets over her and Jake next to her making her somehow sleepier than she was when they arrived, something she didn’t think possible. All she wanted was to close her eyes and drift off to sleep. So she closed her eyes, but she kept talking. “This is my bed. You have to sleep on the floor.”

It took him a moment longer to respond, as though he was already unconscious and it was taking a real effort to send his communications passed the veil. “Sucks to suck.”

Amy hummed.

Jake’s arm stretched out to his side, across the space between them and connected with her face. His hand was warm against her forehead and she scrunched up her eyes. He pressed very lightly, then with more force. Amy felt her body begin rolling away from the middle of the bed and closer to the edge. The draft was already reaching her through a newly discovered hole in her cocoon. She tried pushing back but Jake had more leverage.

“Nooo, _Jake.”_ She was whining. She could feel herself whining but she was too tired to care. She had to unfurl herself from her comfortable cocoon in order to reach out and jab a cold finger into his armpit to get him to stop but it was worth the sacrifice. His arm immediately shrank back, his body shifting away from her.

“Dirty tricks, Santiago.”

“You started it.”

He mumbled something, his voice not coming across as he drifted further and further from consciousness and his mouth no longer could form the words he wanted. He didn’t try again, just let the mumbled noises speak for him.

“Jake?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m still cold.”

“You’re always cold.”

She couldn’t think up anything witty to say, all of her clever retorts needing far more energy than she had. She couldn’t even bring herself to roll her eyes. She only tried to sink further into the blankets and pillows, hoping the warmth would find her. “All I’m saying is if I end up burrowing into your side, it’s because you’re warm and I’m not.”

“S’fine.” As if to prove this, his arm moved again, lifting away from his side so that there was a newly open space next to him. The movement seemed to take too much energy, however, and his arm dropped heavily on the pillow above Amy, stretching across the bed just above her head.

She shifted closer but it took too much effort. She rolled instead, rolling onto her other side so that she was nestled in the pocket at Jake’s side, her back pressed against him. His natural warmth radiated off him and the space she now preoccupied was already warm. It was like rolling directly into a pre-warmed comforter sitting across from a wood fire. Comforting and familiar and safe, but most of all very, very warm. Jake shifted under her to make himself more comfortable and so he ended up angled just so, partially facing her while remaining on his back.

Amy finally felt her consciousness slipping from her. She was sure Jake was already asleep, or would be in another few seconds.

“Night, Jake.”

“Night, Ames.”

#

Amy awoke with the first light, as she always did. But for once, she didn’t feel like getting up. She was still exhausted, her muscled aching, her body far too warm and comfortable to remove herself from the bed this early. She blinked into the first dregs of sunlight peeking through the too-thin curtains. She tried to roll but her back was pressed into Jake’s chest, his arm thrown across her body. She shifted forward a bit, away from him enough to be able to roll over to face him. She squinted into his sleeping face.

The curls on his forehead were plastered down with sleep, the rest of it sticking up and out, wildly tumbling over his pillow. His eyes were closed and the creases had seeped out of his brow, his face looking so young and sweet and content.

He was still warm and Amy was loathe to part with that just yet.

As she watched his sleeping face, he began to shift, his eyes scrunching up and an arm coming up to rub at one eye. It brushed the hair away from his forehead where it joined the rest in sticking straight out. Slowly, his tongue poked out and wet his lips, a yawn trying its best to pour out of him before it got swallowed. His eyes blinked open, then blinked several more times as clarity dawned on him.

Once his eyes focused on Amy, gazing softly up at him, his lips stretched out into a wide, youthful smile. He was still too tired to process anything or create words with his mind, but he just continued on smiling at her, his eyes sparkling in the early morning light. His face rose and fell, rose and fell. His eyelids drifted closed again, blinked open, then forced closed another time, as though glued shut by a powerful force that wanted nothing more than to force him asleep. He fought it, though, continuing to attempt to force himself awake.

Amy wasn’t ready to face the day yet. She wasn’t ready to get back in the car, to surrender this pleasant morning and warm, safe comfort she found herself in.

She pulled one of the spare pillows over Jake’s face as he tried once again to pull himself into wakefulness. “I’m not ready to deal with you right now.”

He seemed to nod, to hum, then to fall promptly back to sleep. His arm once again rested heavily over her side and she could feel herself drifting back into his space. She ducked her head under the covers, touched her forehead to Jake’s chest, and let the blankets and pillows consume her once more.

#

The next time she awoke, it was lighter out. The sun was up and she could feel the sleep taking effect, feel the aches and exhaustion leaving her bones. Jake hadn’t moved again. He still faced her, his arm still draped over her own. She found she didn’t mind. A bed was hardly the most intimate thing she and Jake had shared. In their years of partnership, they’d seen each other in all sorts of discomfort and disarray, had dealt with each other through the good and the bad, and there had been plenty of both. Of all they’d been through, she found this had to be the most content she’d felt.

“Wake up. They’re serving breakfast and I don’t want to go alone.”

Jake rolled onto his back, his arms stretched over his head, and slowly began rolling out from under the covers, his eyes still closed.

Jake was her best friend and she’d never felt as comfortable around anyone as she did around him. The rest of the feelings and stuff they could figure out later. But she wouldn’t mind if it involved sharing a bed more often.


End file.
